For weeks, while I was extremely busy and more than a little stressed, Insomnia stayed away from me. I was happy to have a break from this unwanted visitor who thinks she’s my friend. I was both thankful and amazed that while I had a lot to do and a lot on my mind, she…
There is another butterfly for whom I provide habitat here in Wisconsin. I learned of this butterfly shortly after moving here. It is the tiny Karner Blue. The silvery blue Karner Blue has weathered the storm of federal endangerment. It was listed as Federally Endangered in 1992. But, in Wisconsin, where I believe the largest…
For over ten years – almost the entire duration of time I led the Evergreen Garden Club at one of our district’s four elementary schools, I wanted to be involved in providing an enriching summer school experience on Monarchs or other seasonal horticultural topics. After all, our growing season in Wisconsin is short and what…
Yesterday, June 18th, 2018, I wrote about finding joy and the steps I will be taking to do just that. My initial actions were two-fold. 1) Make a list of the things that bring me joy, and 2) obtain some books on being joyful and/or finding joy. I did neither of these things right away…
Looking at my drafts file, there are a lot of things I could write about today. But, what’s on my mind is finding joy. Over the last year, this emotion has seemed elusive to me – so elusive that I find myself now consciously looking for it. Once again, it’s been a time of transition…
Last week, just days before a submission deadline, I saw an advertisement for flash fiction stories. Since I had never written such a brief story before, I tried it. What follows is my revised attempt. There were two major flaws with my submission. One was that I missed the deadline. After I wrote the piece…
The month of May was consuming. This year, I had a new school garden to manage. It is very large, much larger than the school garden I was previously in charge of caring for. It’s been a struggle to get it planted and weeded. Before planting with each of the 400+ students that attend this…
“Who are you again?” My three-year old asked my sister-in-law while sitting on her lap on a ferry at Walt Disney World ushering them from the Animal Kingdom to Epcot Center in the early evening. It was a mild October night and they were off to meet my husband and oldest child who were already…
Recently, we had family here for one of our son’s high school graduation ceremonies. It’s been a busy few weeks as we elected to have his party last weekend, the week following our family visit and the actual ceremony. So, this week has been the first chance there has been some time to slow down…